


I'd Like to See You Again

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 01:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11681370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: Bellamy is aware of Clarke's schemes to make sure he's taken care of. He'd just like to know what her motives are before he gets in too far over his head with this crush.





	I'd Like to See You Again

**Author's Note:**

> Alt-POV of [More Than Strangers, Less Than Friends](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5748013) for @too-wise-to-woo-peaceably as part of my tumblr follower celebration/appreciation!

"Thai?"

"No, Filipino," Bellamy says, a knee-jerk response that luckily makes Clarke grin.

(He likes making Clarke grin. She usually looks so serious, he feels like he's really earned it.)

"Come on," she goads him, sliding into the empty seat beside him. "You know they always give me too much stir fry for one person. _And_ I got potstickers."

She waves the brown paper bag under his nose, and dammit. It does smell good.

"Your favorite," she sing-songs. He pushes the bag away with a scowl.

"I guess if you're just going to throw out the rest..."

Clarke smirks. "See? You're doing a public service."

Bellamy harrumphs. He's not so sure. Everything Clarke does for him-- tricking him into taking his break at the coffee shop, making sure he eats real food for dinner, even giving her number to his sister, whom she's met all of _once_ \-- has just enough plausible deniability he's not sure he can call her out on it. Or, well, he could, except he's not sure if they're on that level. He'd give Miller a hard time in a heartbeat; Clarke was his student, and now they're kind of floating in the periphery of each other's lives. They're friendly, but he's not sure if they're _friends_.

"Here," he grumbles, pulling a baggie full of carrots from his backpack. He bought them with his employee discount at the grocery store so he could feel as if he's at least contributing something. An aspect of healthiness, if nothing else.

"What's this?"

"It's a vegetable. Grows in the ground, leafy stuff on top? I know you know what they are, I--"

He cuts himself off. He'd been on the verge of copping to slipping stray produce into her purchases when he's bagging her groceries, but that would be too telling. She might realize he's storing them up near the front, just in case she comes in, just hoping to see her, and that wouldn't do at all. Not when he's pretty sure she mostly thinks of him and O as a charity case.

"Yeah, but-- You don't have to share them with me."

"I do if I want you to stay alive long enough to keep feeding me," he grumbles. "You eat like a preschooler."

There's a pause before she says, "A preschooler with a credit card."

(Because he's staring so intently at the bay of security feeds, attempting to downplay his encouragement and even reciprocation of her takeout ploy, he entirely misses the soft smile that she tries and fails to smother.)

"Anything good tonight?" Clarke asks, passing him a container and leaning back in her chair, feet up on the desk like she owns the place.

"Nothing out of the ordinary. A few stragglers after the museum closed, but it's Byrne's night to hunt them down. I feel like Big Brother."

"I've literally never met a bigger brother than you."

"It's my destiny," he agrees, trying not to wonder whether that's all she thinks of him. If she sees him as a big brother kind of figure, it would probably be creepy to hit on her, right? Although sometimes she doesn't seem as if she'd mind. "There were some kids climbing on the outdoor sculptures when we made our rounds earlier, and let's just say she's not as practiced in dealing with them as I am."

"Those rocks are just far enough apart to be perfect for the ground is lava," Clarke grouses, mouth full of rice. "I maintain that the artist is a douche for working it into his contract that there's a no climbing rule."

"There's also liability to think about," Bellamy says fairly, then smiles when she glares. "But yeah, that piece is begging to be climbed on."

"You ever try it?"

"Of course not," he says with a straight face. "That would be breaking the rules."

"Yeah, and you're _such_ a goody two-shoes."

"I don't make the rules, I just enforce them." He pauses. "But in case anyone was ever wondering, that camera gets shut down for about fifteen minutes around two a.m."

She grins again. "We'll have to come play some night when you're not working."

"Who knew the Princess was such a rebel?" Bellamy teases, ignoring her use of 'we'.

"I never pass up an opportunity to stick it to the man. As long as the man has no idea it's happening, or that I'm to blame."

Bellamy laughs, opening his mouth to respond when Clarke's phone buzzes violently against the counter. Her brows knit when she checks the number.

"I gotta take this," she tells him, rising quickly and excusing herself to the hallway just as Byrne comes back in.

"Anything noteworthy?" He asks, snagging one last potsticker before he has to go make his own rounds and trying not to think about the pang of disappointment in his chest. Even though closing the museum can be a pain, he likes having the first evening shift because it usually allows him more time with Clarke.

"All quiet." Byrne sits down in what he thinks of as Clarke's chair. "You start the paperwork on those kids from earlier?"

"No." Bellamy tries not to frown too hard. "They were too young to read the sign and their parents were watching to make sure they didn't hurt themselves. I'm not pressing charges against a bunch of children."

"The _parents_ were old enough to read the signs," Byrne points out, frowning herself.

"They were on the wrong side. They couldn't see them."

"The number one rule of an art museum is that you aren't supposed to touch anything!"

Bellamy opens his mouth to give a somewhat ugly retort but Clarke interrupts, popping back in to grab her things. "Sorry," she says, wincing when they both pause to watch her. "Don't mind me. Sorry."

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah." She gives him a small smile. "I'm fine. I'll see you tomorrow, probably. Coffee, right?"

"Yeah." His face reddens at how that must sound to Byrne, at how Clarke must have his schedule memorized. At how he'd really like to see her sometime when he's not on a clock. "See you around."

She nods and gives him one last smile before slipping out of the room.

"I'm going on rounds," he tells Byrne, abrupt. She purses her lips.

"I'm writing up a report."

"Fine," he sighs. "Just leave me out of it."

He's halfway to the sculpture gallery when his phone buzzes with a text from Octavia.

_There's too much drama here and i'm going home._

And then, just as he's freaking out, _getting a ride not walking don't have a cow._

_I can come get you_ , he texts back, sighing heavily. This job pays the best out of any of them. He could really use the hours.

**Octavia:**  d _on't do that_  
_i can be home by myself for a few hours_  
_i'm seventeen_  
_and i'll just be asleep most of the time_

**Bellamy:** _Are you sure?_

**Octavia:** _YES  
besides, we need the *dollar bills flying away emoji*_

**Bellamy:** _Text me when you get there._  
_Lock the doors.  
Don't talk to strangers._

**Octavia:** _if u keep texting me i'm gonna put myself on do not disturb_

**Bellamy:** _I'll stop  
But don't you dare_

He's made it through half his circuit when he gets another text from her, which is just a picture of the inside of their front door, locked and deadbolted. Even as stressed as he is that she's either inviting a boy over or going to get serial murdered, it makes him smile.

(Well, the picture and imagining him and Clarke sneaking over to the art museum in the middle of the night to play on the sculptures. Maybe getting breakfast afterward at a 24/7 diner, teasing each other about how they take their coffee and bumping feet under the table.)

(Maybe he's pathetic.)

In fact, it's enough to make him feel better all the way up to when he pulls into the driveway and finds that there's a car he doesn't recognize parked on the street.

"Dammit, Octavia," he mutters, slinging his bag over one shoulder tiredly. In the foul mood he's in, he can't help slamming the door a little bit behind him.

"Oops," a female voice says, and suddenly Clarke is there, pushing herself up from where she'd apparently fallen asleep on his couch. What the hell was she doing on his couch?

"Clarke?" She winces at the sharpness of his tone, but it's four in the morning and his sister has a lot of explaining to do and he's not in the best headspace to calm down. "What are you doing here?"

"Octavia called me. I picked her up on my way home, only I didn't make it all the way there."

Bellamy's stomach churns. He's somewhat irrationally hurt that Octavia hadn't called _him_. A not-so-small part of him is also embarrassed that Clarke has now seen where he lives, a far cry from the mansion she probably grew up in. Embarrassed that he couldn't go pick his own sister up because he needed money in a way Clarke maybe never has.

"She called you? She's met you once."

"You were at work. I have a car." Clarke is a little snappish and it makes him feel somewhat better, remembering she can handle receiving a little bit of attitude. Still, he tries to get better control over it. "Besides, I'm probably better versed in teenage girl drama than you are."

"She still shouldn't have called you. And you definitely didn't have to spend the night just because--"

"That was my own fault," she says coolly, standing and looking around as if a little disoriented. "I wouldn't have wanted to be alone if I was in her shoes, so I came in for a little while and I must have fallen asleep at some point. It was my bad. I'll get out of your hair."

She starts for the door but Bellamy can't stop himself. Every frustration at not being able to read her generosity, at his own financial struggles, bubbles over at once.

"I just don't understand why you're--" Clarke turns. "Are we some kind of charity case for you?"

Her glare is positively icy. "Of course not."

"Then what is it?" He throws up his hands. "What is it with you and the takeout and giving us your number and whatever else you're doing to rack up positive karma points?"

" _That's what friends do,_ " she insists, raising her voice enough it freezes his anger in its tracks. Bellamy is caught off guard, looking down at her with new eyes.

So they are friends. He'd had his suspicions.

The thing is, he has other friends, and none of them are like Clarke. She's a category all of her own. And he's beginning to think she might feel the same way.

"Oh."

He swallows. The irritation begins to drain from Clarke's face as she catches every emotion flickering across his face.

"Can we rewind this conversation?" He asks at last, voice low. "I may have-- overreacted a little bit."

"A bit."

"Sorry." He runs a hand over the back of his neck self-consciously. He's so tired, yet he's also never felt so awake. "It's just-- we're friends?"

"I thought we'd crossed that threshold, yeah. I mean, I get it if I'm just some undergrad who's been bugging you. I'll back off. But with as much as we run into each other, I just figured it made sense for us to be friends instead of-- I don't know, accidental mutual stalking?"

She grows slightly pink and flustered as she speaks and Bellamy has to smile.

"I'm just glad you don't think I'm an incompetent caretaker," he confesses. _Or poor_ , he adds silently, though that's an insecurity that hits too close to home for him to give voice to just yet. Instead, he adds, before he can lose his courage, "Or a weird old guy trying to hit on someone too young for me. I've been trying all summer to figure out whether I could turn accidental mutual stalking into a date."

"Yeah?" Her cheeks redden again but in a different way. "What did you come up with?"

"I had this whole plan," he says, exaggerating more than a little. It was an idea he'd toyed with, though he hadn't intended to follow through until he knew for sure where she thought they stood. "Next time I saw you-- which I was not expecting to be this soon-- I was going to ask you whether we could run into each other on purpose sometime."

"That can be arranged," she says, and she's _laughing_. It's so much more than he expected. "Maybe we could run into each other this weekend?"

"I'm at the coffee shop most of the weekend," he says, his nerves resurfacing. "But I could do dinner Saturday?"

Clarke all-out grins, and yeah. It's his favorite thing, getting that out of her.

"Dinner sounds perfect."

* * *

He's got two hours left in his shift and is just starting to get truly antsy when she appears at the counter, wearing a blue sundress and clutching the straps of her bag anxiously.

"Fancy running into you here," she quips.  
  
Bellamy grins. "Of all the java joints in all the world. What can I get you?"

"Hmm, I'm not sure." She taps her chin in mock thought. "Something with a lot of caffeine probably. I've got a date later with this guy who really loves to tell boring history stories--"

He laughs and looks around, but they're slow and nobody is watching except Harper (who won't care), so he leans forward and kisses her quick. She makes a startled noise but she's smiling and he can't wait to do a lot more of that later, hopefully.

"So that's a double shot of espresso?" He teases, lingering in her space. She leans in and gives him one more quick kiss before pushing him back fully behind the counter.

"Maybe just some of that tea I got last week. You know the one?"

"Yep." He grabs a cup and scribbles on it, passing it to Harper to get it started. "I was here."

"Of course you were." She ducks her head, and he does glimpse the soft smile this time. "Why else would I have come?"

"I don't know," Bellamy shrugs, like that's not the best thing he's heard all day. "Beats me."

"Yeah." Clarke rolls her eyes but she's still pink and smiling. It's the best. "Me either."

 


End file.
